Re: U-boats and mine laying


"B F Lake" <nomail@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jLxWf.20805$%H.8123@xxxxxxxxxxx

"Peter McLelland" <peter.mclelland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
The mines take up torpedo space. The sub goes off somewhere to lay
the
mines and now what? She could stay out for weeks, but would have to
return
to re-arm well before normal time. Which means more transit time
instead
of
patrol area time. It was already bad enough with only one-third of a
U-boats's time being on patrol due to transit and harbour time.

In the WW2 scenario most mining missions would have been a week or so,
if
you think of it in weapon load delivered doing 3 mine loads in the time
a
mid Atlantic patrol would have taken may be a good return. Submarines
only
stayed at sea for so long because of unproductive transit time and the
time
to find a good convoy or two.

It seems to depend on the transit distance? Subs as minelayers would be
chosen where even a surface fast minelayer would not be able to get home
before daybreak and thus be subject to air attack. When the area to be
mined was close enough, aircraft could do it more safely yet. Then the
air
power guy has to figure if it would be better to drop a bomb that will hit
something for sure or mines that might be hit by something. Whole bunch
of
math required--how many bombs actually do any damage, etc. Of course
torpedoes don't always hit either. In real life, you do a bit of
everything
as much as you can and after the war somebody can do the math to see what
was really worth it.

So if the place to be mined is Halifax, NS, or New York , NY and the sub
is
based in Europe, what is the better weapon load? The sub gets all the way
over there and lays the mines and now it is on the wrong side of the pond
with lots of fuel and food and is short of torpedoes. We used to
speculate
on whether the Soviets would ever choose to mine Halifax and most figured
they would choose torpedoes over mines. Halifax was mined in 1943 by
submarine, but was quickly swept. It just wasn't worth it from the
U-boat's
point of view. It is not a co-incidence that the USN and RCN had/have
few
if any minesweepers while the Europeans have lots.

Quite, for U Boats mining Canada or the USA was not really an option the
cost of getting the mines there and in sufficient numbers was too high, but
round the UK it was a good option, if you could avoid the RN minefields.


In the Soviet case my objective as a Soviet commander would be to get mines
in place with a delayed activation before the declaration of war, then use
torpedoes.

Never ignore the mine, it is the cheapest way for the enemy to spoil your
day.

Peter


.

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